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A series of photographs circulated online purportedly show a luxurious $400 million custom-built Boeing 747 that was purchased by South Africa president Jacob Zuma: The above-reproduced message can be boiled down to two basic claims: Do the photographs show a plane owned by President Zuma? No. These images do not show a plane owned by President Zuma. The picture showing the exterior of the plane was taken in December 2011 before a test flight of the aircraft for Lufthansa Airlines at the main airport in Frankfurt, Germany. The rest of the photographs capture a conceptual VIP & Head of State customized interior of a Boeing 747-8 VIP that was designed by luxury aviation designer Greenpoint Technologies, and these pictures have been circulating online since early 2015, more than a year before they were attached to President Zuma's name. Is this the most expensive plane in the world? Maybe. Maybe not. It's certainly up there. This plane was worth about $370 million before Greenpoint Technologies completed the interior refurbishment work. Although we have not been able to find the final price tag of the plane, it certainly does rank among the world's most expensive aircrafts. One luxury airplane that could give this Boeing 747-8 a run for its money is a custom Airbus 340 that was reportedly purchased by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov for an estimated $500 million. Where did this rumor originate? This rumor may have started as a simple misunderstanding. Zuma's presidential plane, a Boeing 737 called Inkwazi, was grounded several times due to mechanical problems, and the South African president requested a new luxury plane to replace it: In 2015, web sites such as Business Tech published articles exploring what Zuma’s R4 billion plane could look like that included photographs of unrelated luxury jets and speculation about which planes (including the aforementioned Boeing 747-8 VIP) he might potentially purchase. As of this writing, however, we have not turned up any confirmation that Zuma has splurged on a new luxury jet. In July 2016, Business Tech reported that Zuma had ditched his plan for a new jet and was leasing a plane for R2 million (about $150,000 USD). The Sunday Times reported in September 2016 that South Africa still had plans to purchase a new presidential plane for between R1-billion and R2.8-billion (between US$75 and $200 million). President Zuma stirred up controversy in 2015 when he requested a new luxury plane, but these pictures do not depict a $400 million aircraft purchased by the South African president.
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